The painting …. the actor …. and the exhibition

This is Ira Aldridge and my Wikipedia tells me he “was an American-born British actor, playwright, and theatre manager, known for his portrayal of Shakespearean characters”.*

 Ira Aldridge, 1826

He was born in1807 and emigrated to Liverpool in 1824 and by the following year was performing on the London stage.

At this point I could launch into a detailed description of his life and achievements, but I would only be copying from Wikipedia and even if I cobbled something together from several sources, I doubt that I could really call it research ….. it would still in truth be copying.

At the Threatre Royal with Mr. Aldridge, 1856

So, I won’t.  Suffice to say that by following the link you can get the lot.

Instead, I will just pick up on his condemnation of slavery which he made in several speeches while touring in Coventry and which according to various sources inspired the residents to petition Parliament to abolish slavery.**

Now that I think is worthy of some research.

And as you do, I went looking for him in Manchester, and yes, this portrait is in the City Art Gallery but more exciting because it is a bit of original research, I found that he performed here in the city.

The Queen's Theatre, 1850

On May 12th, 1849, the Manchester Guardian reported that he was performing at the Queen’s Theatre, Spring Gardens and seven years later at the Theatre Royal.***

At the Queen's Theatre, 1849 in the company of Mr. Aldridge

I have yet to uncover a review, but it will only be a matter of time, but I know the old Theatre Royal and found the Queen’s Theatre on the corner of Spring Gardens and York Street. Alas the Queen’s has gone having been demolished in the 1860s for a warehouse.

All of this was unknown to me until I met Ian Nickson who is involved in a fascinating exhibition at Central Ref exploring the connection between Shakespeare and Manchester.

It explores "the story of how seven personalities transformed Manchester into a global centre of Shakespearean theatre in the Victorian era and reveals present-day evidence of the city’s innovative engagement with the works of Shakespeare”.

The Shakespeare Windowm, Central Ref

One of the seven is my old chum Ira Aldridge along with “local businessman John Knowles who commissioned the Theatre Royal on Peter Street in 1845, actor-manager Charles Calvert and Rosa Grindon who forged a career as the Victorian age’s leading female Shakesperean scholar.”

There are more but where would be the fun in recording all of them when dear reader you can discover them for your self at  Shakespeare and Manchester: A Victorian Powerhouse Exhibition Manchester?

It is on at  Central Library on the First Floor Display Cases from February 12th 2026 untill May 30th 2026.

I have got my personal tour booked with Ian for next Wednesday, but given that it is on till the end of May there will be plenty of opportunities to visit it again and again and again.

For more details contact:

Ian Nickson. Honorary Research Fellow, University of Manchester, ian.nickson-2@manchester.ac.uk

Kattie Kincaid, Project Lead for the Shakespearean Garden,  kattiekincaid@hotmail.com

Location; Manchester Central Library, St Peter's Square, Manchester, M2 5PD

At the Ref, 2014

Pictures; Ira Aldridge, 1826 painted by James Northcote, Manchester Art Gallery Accession number 1882.2, advert for The Theatre Royal 1856, the Queen’s Theatre 1850, from Adshead’s map of Manchester,  courtesy of Digital Archives Association http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/  The Shakespeare Window in the entrance of the Central Library and Central Reference Library, 2014, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Ira Aldridge, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ira_Aldridge

**First black Shakespearean actor Ira Aldridge honoured BBC News, August 3, 2017, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-40802072

***Queen’s Theatre, Manchester Guardian, May 12, 1849 Theatre Royal, Manchester, Manchester Guardian July 5th, 1856

Mrs Martha Thorpe, the slaughter house and a new row of shops on Beech Road

Now when Mrs Thorpe opened her “slaughter house” in 1879 on Beech Road I doubt she thought that she would still be there selling cuts of meat, mince and tripe at the dawn of the next century.

Looking down towards the "slaughter house" circa 1900

But that is just exactly what happened and in the process will have been visited by countless customers in what is now Elk, which given its name is an interesting turn of events for what was originally a shop dealing in dead animals.

Until recently I had no idea of the date of the building and it was only as I trawled the rate books that its age came to light.

The rate books will tell you who owned the property and if it was rented and the estimated annual rent along with its rateable value.

And by slowly tracking back year by year it will be possible to arrive at the date the building was completed and first assessed for rates.

In our case this was 1878, not long after Chorlton Row and been renamed Beech Road, and when there were still farms, and smithy within a few minute’s walk of Mrs Thorpe’s business.

Beech Road, circa 1900

The discovery of the “slaughter house” was not an accident and came out of the research on the bars of Chorlton for the book Chorlton pubs and bars.



Location; Chorlton

Picture; Beech Road circa 1900 from the Lloyd collection

Half a century of change in St Peter’s Square

Now this is one of the scenes of St Peter’s Square which has gradually changed over time.

I can’t be sure when the picture was taken but it was added to Valentine’s card catalogue in 1937 and will have to date from after 1934 when work on the Town Hall Extension was started.

That said the building was not completed till 1938 which means that when our photograph was made bits of the new Town Hall had yet to be finished.

Since then every decade some of what you can see has vanished, and what replaced it hasn’t always stayed the course.

Since I arrived in 1969 the building behind the tram has gone and  was for a while the Peace Garden and will presently be the relocated metro stop, which is also a reminder that the square lost its trams in the late 1940s and has seen them return.

The white building on the other corner of Mosley Street has also disappeared as has the building which fronted the parked cars on the right of the picture.  It went in favour of that utilitarian building called Elizabeth House which lasted just over forty years.

More recently we had the platforms of the tram stop outside the Library which has come and gone and the relocation of the Cenotaph.

And for those wanting more, Central Ref and the Town Hall Extension has undergone major refurbishment and changes reflecting what we want of public buildings in the 21st century.

So there you have it, most of this won’t be new to many but for some it may be a total revelation.

And no sooner  had I posted the story and  Robert offered up his own image taken from the Midland Hotel just a few days ago.

It is a supberb contrast to what our unknown photographer captured almsot eighty years ago.

Location; Manchester

Picture; St Peter’s Square, circa 1937, from the collection of David Harrop and in 2016 courtesy of Robert Moores

One hundred years of one house in Well Hall part 16 ........... the plays wot mum wrote

This is the continuing story of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family.*

Well Hall Road, 2014

For as long as I can remember our mum wrote plays, short stories and worked on a novel about life in south east London.

She had begun writing in the RAF during the last war when as a typist she had all that a writer could need ........ spare time, a typewriter, and paper.

All of which were the building blocks to give full vent to her vivid imagination.

On those long quiet moments on an RAF station in Lincolnshire she wrote about what she experienced including the loss of life and the fears and triumphs of the air crews and supporting teams.

Mum and friend circa 1942

Later as we were growing up she tried her hand at writing plays discovering there was a market for the three act play which was aimed specifically at women’s groups.

The basic requirement was that most of the parts had to be for women, and while the plot could be anything from a comedy to a murder there had to be opportunities for women of all ages.

I can’t now remember how many she produced but I know it was a fair few, although sadly none of the published plays have survived and as yet I can’t find any reference to them anywhere.

But we do have the manuscript of the book she was writing on along with some short stories.

Looking back we never thought it was unusual and yet here was a woman whose formal education had ended at 14, and who had spoken only German until she was three years old.

She began work in a local silk factory and went onto have a succession of jobs until the war swept her up and deposited her in “bomber county.”

Later after moving to London she began writing again, using at first a battered old typewriter before acquiring a slick “Oliveti” model.

And as someone who uses a computer all the time I marvel at those who wrote using a typewriter which doesn’t allow the instant use of the delete button, the facility to cut and paste, or either a word or spell check.

Mum in 1949

On the other hand it has left me with a collection of paper copies of her literary output.

The manuscripts maybe on flimsy paper, now are over laden with a musty smell and tinged with yellow but they offer up a link to mum, more powerful than an electronic text.

That said the computer and social media have offered up a huge opportunity for people to record and share  their memories, and publish both photographs and paintings which might otherwise never have seen the light of day.

All of which demonstrates the amount of talent there is out there and by extension just how much of that talent in the past never saw the light of day.

By contrast on facebook and other sites people regularly post fine photographs which are as good as any “art work” and write in the most vivid and direct way about growing up and the places that mean so much too them.

And yes I am sure that if mum were still writing today she would have embraced them all.

Location; Well Hall

Pictures; 294, courtesy of Chrissy Rose, 2015, and mum from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall

So why did the Jacobite’s have the best songs?

Now for those who don’t know, the Jacobite cause was the forlorn attempt  to restore the Stuart royal family to the throne.

And in the process do away with the Hanoverian’s who had assumed the throne in 1714.

There had been two attempts by the Jacobite’s to achieve this reassertion of ownership in 1715 and again in 1745.

The first involved James Francis Edward Stuart, referred to by some as the Old Pretender, and the second by Charles Edward Stuart, variously known as the Young Pretender, or Bonnie Prince Charlie.

Now I was brought up on the romance of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and the last Jacobite attempt to regain the throne for the Stuarts, which isn’t surprising since our family only crossed the border into England at the start of the last century, and ours was a long journey south from the east Highlands.

So, I grew up with songs of that Jacobite rebellion, from those chronicling the brave Highland clans to the lament at the defeat at Culloden, and the departure of the Young Pretender.*

They still make wonderful listening but hide the reality of the savage aftermath of the last battle, the feudal nature of the Highlands and the betrayal of the cause by the Prince himself who left the Jacobite’s to their fate and died in Rome in 1788.

And of course, you have to question the whole escapade which was designed to substitute one dynasty for another, but was bound up with the dominance of England and the Lowland Scots, and today by the renewed interest in Scottish independence set against the huge chasm which is Brexit.

But those songs still resonate today, while the anti Jacobite ones have faded from popular culture.

So why is this? 

I suppose because the Jacobite cause was lost, and the repression that followed was so savage that there is that nostalgic lament for what might have been tied up by the romantic image of Bonnie Prince Charlie, which was then worked on in the 19th century when the Jacobites were no longer a threat and so it became “safe” to treat them as that romantic and lost cause, which has been sustained by an appeal to Scottish nationalism.

Added to which the tunes are very good and made better by the addition in some cases of the pipes.

That said not all of them date from 1745, or the immediate after years.

I listen regularly to a slew of Jacobite songs, but confess to only humming along to one anti Jacobite song which is the "Ye Jacobites by Name", which attacked the Jacobites  but was rewritten by Robert Burns  around 1791 giving a version with a more general, humanist anti-war, but nonetheless anti-Jacobite outlook.

So that is it …… answers on a postcard care of Rome.***

Pictures; "Gentlemen he cried, drawing his sword, I have thrown away the scabbard", from Scotland's story: a history of Scotland for boys and girls, Marshall, H. E. 1907, Manchester in the 18th century, from Shaw William, Manchester Old and New, 1894, and The Battle of Culloden, David Morier, 1746

*Jacobite Songs by the Corries, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAEA7D750B5002C1F

**Lasting resting place of Bonnie Prince Charlie who escaped Scotland ...unlike most of his Jacobite supporters who ended up in the West Indies as indentured labour.

And the footnote, "The Acts of Union (Scottish Gaelic: Achd an Aonaidh) were two Acts of Parliament: the Union with Scotland Act 1706 passed by the Parliament of England, and the Union with England Act passed in 1707 by the Parliament of Scotland. 

They put into effect the terms of the Treaty of Union that had been agreed on 22 July 1706, following negotiation between commissioners representing the parliaments of the two countries. By the two Acts, the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland—which at the time were separate states with separate legislatures, but with the same monarch—were, in the words of the Treaty, "United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain"

Acts of Union, 1707, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acts_of_Union_1707

Mrs Martha Thorpe, the slaughter house and a new row of shops on Beech Road

 Now when Mrs Thorpe opened her “slaughter house” in 1879 on Beech Road I doubt she thought that she would still be there selling cuts of meat, mince and tripe at the dawn of the next century or that her shop would have a passing connection with meat in the century to follow.

Looking down towards the "slaughter house" circa 1900

But that is just exactly what happened and in the process will have been visited by countless customers when it was Elk, which given its name is an interesting turn of events for what was originally a shop dealing in dead animals.

Until recently I had no idea of the date of the building and it was only as I trawled the rate books that its age came to light.

The rate books will tell you who owned the property and if it was rented and the estimated annual rent along with its rateable value.

And by slowly tracking back year by year it will be possible to arrive at the date the building was completed and first assessed for rates.

In our case this was 1878, not long after Chorlton Row and been renamed Beech Road, and when there were still farms, and smithy within a few minute’s walk of Mrs Thorpe’s business.

Beech Road, circa 1900

The row containing the "slaughterhouse" was part of the retail revolution which transformed how we shopped and a little over a century later  was the home of Primavera, which along with Cafe on the Green, the Italian Deli and the Lead Station heralded a second revolution which was the coming of the bars, cafes, and the shops selling "the interesting things". 

Location; Chorlton 

Picture; Beech Road, circa 1900 from the Lloyd Collection

One hundred years of one house in Well Hall part 10........... from bread and dripping to Museli

This is the continuing story  of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family.*

Now I suspect pretty much every generation thinks that there’s was the one which has seen the most profound change and I am the first to accept that mine has no monopoly on the new inventions, mould breaking fashions and seminal music.

But there is no doubt that those of us born just after the last war, who started school in the early 1950s and are just beginning to enter retirement have experienced a bewildering revolution in what we eat and how we prepare that food.

I will have been four when rationing was finally abandoned, and in the succeeding decades came to take for granted a huge range of new foods sourced from all over the world and delivered within hours of being harvested.

And of course with all that came a deluge of specialist utensils, ever larger cookers and the microwave.

All of which makes me think back to our tiny kitchen at 294, which was just large enough to take an old battered Cannon gas cooker, and small fridge which nestled either side of the sink.

In their wisdom the architects had provided a largish store cupboard under the stairs and here went the bulk of our dried and tinned food.

And what couldn’t be found the cupboard or the fridge was still bought fresh and eaten on the same day.

But the fridge is the key to the change.

In the 1950s the growing reliance on frozen food would lift some of the drudgery out of preparing food.

Now I still like washing carrots, peeling potatoes and shelling peas but for sheer speed nothing beats opening the packet of frozen peas.

And sixty years ago the adverts for frozen foods focused on that simple message that they were quick to use and because of the way they had been frozen on the day they were harvested were bound to be fresher than the peas and carrots which had made their way from the field via the market to the small greengrocer, whose turn over dictated that the produce might sit for days before it was bought.

Of course few people in 1956 had a fridge let along a freezer which was why the bags of frozen vegetables came in small sizes which were bought and used on the same day.

And in much the same way out went the old fashioned breakfast of porridge, eggs, bacon and toast in favour of the breakfast cereal.

Now these had been around since the 1930s, and there are ads in the collection for Corn Flakes and Rice Crispies, but the 50s offered up a new and exciting range, often marketed with a toy or other novelty and clearly aimed at the young.

Mother was quick off the mark to try the "new TV dinners  for one" which came out in the late 50s but equally died a death in our house as too expensive and not that nice.

Instead we reverted to simpler home cooked food but there was no going back on the changes that had happened.

As each of us left to set up our own homes the variety and the quantity of what we bought and ate just kept on growing.

But Dad preferred his tins, and on one memorable evening after I had cooked a pasta dish he smiled and said quietly that "it was good but  didn't really like  food messed about."

Location;Well Hall, Eltham, London


Pictures;  adverts for Birds Eye Foods and Sugar Puffs, from Woman’s Own, January 12 1956

*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall